


Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

by crystalsoulslayer



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:10:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalsoulslayer/pseuds/crystalsoulslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humorous oneshot. Q toys with Picard; Picard finds tea-related condiments in odd places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

Q listened as the man, for the third time that day, ordered "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."  
Q sighed as the smell of pungently brewed tea filled the room. One of these days, Q was just going to snatch that damn tea and pour it all over Picard's bald head. Better yet, he could shrink Picard to the size of a flea and dunk him in that damn tea like a donut. Except you weren't supposed to dunk donuts into tea. No matter. The simile retains the same significance.  
Picard settled himself comfortably into a large, squishy-looking armchair, folded his legs beneath him, and began to read. Q sighed and drummed his fingertips against a moderately sized star. Per the rule of cause and effect, a colossal fireball the size of Picard's home planet detached itself and flew off into space, nearly crashing into a nearby planet. A few million voices cried out in fear. "Sorry," Q muttered, and adjusted himself so that no further explosions would ensue.  
Q didn't quite know why he engaged himself in watching Picard so much, but he knew that it was definitely more fun than gallivanting around the cosmos with grandiose ideals of morality and a so-called "responsibility," studying boring worlds from afar and reporting the actions of meaningless worldly politicians to higher-level Q, which was the pastime of the rest of the Continuum. So he sat and watched Picard, sat and watched as he read Macbeth for literally the thousandth time, and watched as Picard drank his tea, readied for bed, and retired for the evening.  
And he watched the next night, and the next. Julius Caesar, Dracula, the Count of Monte Cristo... Did this man read anything but meaningless Earth "classics?" Q wondered idly, digging an asteroid out from under a fingernail. Every single day, after dinner, Picard would get his tea, curl up in that same damn chair, and read something.  
It drove Q insane.  
"Picard, would it be in your entirely insignificant power to read something meaningful, like the historical account of the fall of the Darsus empire on Sexis XIV or the legends of the Korr in Alpha Centauri's Dmlsid system?" Q was constantly tempted to say. But instead he just watched, commending his own maturity and self-control, and toyed with the idea of shrinking Picard and dunking him in his own tea.  
But naturally, he didn't. Shrinking was entirely undignified; it implied (in the Continuum, at least) that a Q was too weak to manipulate the full-sized object, and thus energy had to be expended to expend less energy. And besides, Q was normally more... elaborate in his plans. More elaborate and manipulative.  
And then he toyed with the notion of a gigantic VAT of Earl Grey. A lake-sized vat, surrounded by a desert of sugar, where the sky rained mild lemon juice. As for the cream... Q chuckled evilly and started to formulate his plans.

"Geordi, has the Captain said anything odd to you lately?" asked Dr. Crusher, fixing the burn the engineer had gotten while realigning a plasma conduit.  
"No, Doc," said Geordi. "But he has seemed kind of distracted lately."  
Crusher nodded and located her medical tricorder. "You know, the other day, I had dinner in his quarters with him, and he said... 

"I think I shall get some tea. Hmm. No, no, perhaps not... Would you care for some, Beverly?"  
"No, thank you, Jean-Luc. I'll take some coffee, though, if you could."  
Picard nodded and retrieved some coffee for the doctor. Q chuckled a little and watched the scene unfold; the captain and the doctor making human small talk, and all the while thoughts of Q were streaming from the man's consciousness like a... dammit, but Q couldn't think of a non-sexual simile. No matter, though.  
"Beverly, have you had any... odd dreams, lately?"  
Crusher raised one of her eyebrows in an entirely serious-looking way that made Q laugh aloud and shatter a large ball of ice hurtling past him, because Crusher had had nothing but odd dreams lately. Q had seen to it that Crusher's dreams were filled with naughty-minded tentacle monsters, gallivanting half-robot space pirates, and Riker. Oh, yes. He loved the look of horror on her face when Riker entered her dreams.  
"No, Captain," said the doctor blithely. "Why do you ask?"  
Picard immediately flushed beetroot red and stuttered, "N-nothing, really. But I've been having such strange dreams, and I once awoke (to my bewilderment) to find a lump of sugar between my-"  
And Q conveniently caused an ensign on Deck 6 to trip and break an ankle to get rid of Crusher.

"Weird," said Geordi. "The Captain drinks TEA? He's French!"  
Q doubted that. The mortal was much too sensible to be French.

Picard groaned loudly, and Q sent him back to his ship, chuckling evilly. He found he rather enjoyed the human practice of "realigning the ol' warp core," as Geordi once aptly put it to an attractive young Ensign. It soothed him. Q made a mental note to respond to any jibes from Q and Q in the future with the human phrase "Man, you really need to get laid," because it really was quite fun. (Q entertained himself for a moment with an image of the entire Q Continuum in a massive orgy, with all sorts of fantastical devices. And screaming. Lots and lots of screaming. The screaming mostly came from Q and Q and Q, whom Q didn't like, and Q also, who bothered Q and Q, and thus also bothered Q himself. Q, Q, and Q were all very good friends. He'd have to see about... oh, no, not yet.) The laying, not getting laid. He wouldn't know about getting laid; Q hadn't tried that yet.  
But he would.

Picard and Data sat in silence on the shuttlecraft, when out of the blue Data said, "Captain?"  
"Yes, Data?"  
"There is a drop of lemon juice on your uniform."

Picard was dreaming again.  
It was a most bizarre dream, not least because he was being chased but where, and in what state, and by whom.  
Every time he visited, it was raining. Initially, Picard had thought it was urine, but on closer inspection, it proved to be lemon juice. "How odd," Picard had said to himself. He glanced at the ground; the sand was white, and granular. He could feel it between his toes. It was most disconcerting. He knelt down to get a closer look, and that was when he realized he was completely naked.  
Picard screeched like a hyena and collapsed into the sand. As he did so, some of it entered his mouth. "Sugar," he realized with another shout, and spat it out.  
While Picard had been in numerous convoluted and difficult situations over his many years on the Enterprise, this was simply ridiculous. What entity could POSSIBLY come up with such a contrived and... and... and UNDIGNIFYING existence? Lemon juice? And sugar? Why, he might be swimming in TEA in the next few minutes!  
"Hello, mon capitaine," said a voice from behind him. And suddenly everything made sense.  
After a few years of dreading that voice, Picard knew it quite well, and so took off running as fast as he possibly could across the plain of sugar. Naked. While it rained lemon juice. With an immortal demigod chasing him. NAKED.  
God, why did he join Starfleet?  
Quite suddenly, Picard fell into a large pool of liquid. It was warm, and... silky, somehow. Steam rose from it, and drops of lemon juice spattered into it. The liquid itself was dark, almost like...  
"Tea, Earl Grey, hot," Picard whispered, and Q caught up to him.

"Data, can I express something to you in confidence?"  
"Certainly, Captain."  
"Well, Data, this is a rather awkward subject, and I don't want to worry the crew about it, but it simply must be said."  
"What is it, sir?"  
Picard shifted uncomfortably and stated simply, "Well, lately, upon waking, I feel rather like I've just been bum-fucked in a vat of Earl Grey tea."


End file.
